Wheel of Time MUD

[i]She pushed him. She pushed him, and he fell—from the highest floor of the tallest tower in all of Tar Valon. The White Tower. He shattered as he hit the ground as if his body were wrought from fine Seafolk porcelain. Even as he lay there, fragmented into tiny shards, he could hear the Tower behind him. He could hear it cracking too. Soon, everything would break again.[/i]

Adran cried out wordlessly as he startled from sleep. A dream. It had only been a dream. His sister’s shadow had loomed large over Adran’s entire childhood; now, here, jackknifed as his gangly torso was into a cot in the White Tower infirmary, why should it be any different?

The Aes Sedai came. The Aes Sedai went. Most, with silky yellow fringes on their shawls, poked and prodded at young Adran as if inspecting a horse, and not a particularly good one. They used the One Power to heal his wounds; he could feel his bones knitting together and wanted to scream as every hair on his body stood on end. Light, his hair could stand up, but he couldn’t!

He breathed as deeply as his mending ribs would allow. He needed to gather his strength if he wished to escape this place, and escape it he would. For not all the Aes Sedai came to heal him; some came to ask questions as Adran faded in and out of consciousness. Even as unwell as he was, he could tell they were not pleased with his answers.

“Do you serve a false prophet, boy?” asked a vicious woman in red, her eyes like thunder.

“Tell us of the Dragonsworn’s plans. Surely you must know what they plot next,” This one blue, her disdain palpable behind a smile that did not touch her eyes.

Always, Adran stammered the same half-truths. He was only visiting. He heard the commotion and wanted to see the fuss. He would never support a false dragon.

But . . . Adran’s secret self whispered another story entirely. Of course he would not support a false dragon—who would?—but the real one? That was an entirely different proposition . . . no, the Aes Sedai could not be trusted. Not when they were the reason Adran was hurt in the first place!

A simple enough plan, to sneak a letter out of the infirmary and to the pigeon coop without attracting an Aes Sedai’s notice. They rarely paid attention to servants, of course, so Adran spent his time awake surveying those who minded the bedpans and other work the Aes Sedai might consider beneath even a Novice. And his time asleep? Well . . .

The next dream was not nearly so vicious as the first. Not even a dream, really, but the gauzy half-reality that existed between wakefulness and sleep. He could almost perceive the Aes Sedai who tended him now as if he were waving to her adrift on a boat, and she on the far shore.

The brown fringe of her shawl tickled Adran’s arm, and it felt too familiar. Sometimes, when the Aes Sedai came to offer healing, his whole body convulsed from the shock of it. But this . . .

This was something different. Something like . . . Adran almost found the words to describe the feeling before the weaves pulled him under once more.

Korsik edit Feb 21 2024:

1-8 qps, depending on length and quality.

Rplizer +1 qps : o
Extra meticulous edit +1 qps : o
Length bonus +1-2 qps : o
Part of a series +1 qps: x
Summary: +1 qps : o

Post 1: 2qps
Post 2: 3qps
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Was he dead? No, he wasn’t dead. Adran stirred under rubble which pinned him to the ground like an unkind lover. Not that Adran knew much of love. Not that he knew much of anything--a whisker past his eighteenth winter and the baby of his family, the only boy, Adran had been at turns spoiled and sheltered his entire life, which so far hadn’t amounted to much.

Adran’s eldest sister always said the boy possessed the Dark One’s own luck whenever he’d drop a stack of plates and none would break, when he’d roll the same pips over and over and over. Adran wasn’t sure if he believed in luck, but maybe the Light did shine on him: he’d survived this, after all.

And what was this? An explosion? An avalanche? He’d arrived in Tar Valon only hours before with a few marks in his belt pouch and not much else. He planned to announce himself at the White Tower, but only after finding a job and a place to stay. Maybe he’d join the Tower Guard. Burn him, but maybe he’d be a Warder someday!

Adran wanted to make his sister proud, and he wanted to punish her. How dare she not respond to his letters? He knew her training would keep her busy, but that didn’t mean you forgot about family. He’d spent years convincing himself of this last point, and now that he was so close to his goal, those convictions turned to ash in his mouth.

Adran was afraid.

And why shouldn’t he be? Perhaps he was stupid to come all this way. His sister clearly did not care if she did not write. What would she make of this sheepish, dirty boy showing up on the doorstep of her immaculate White Tower? Yes, Adran needed a job before he could look her in the eye. He needed a [i]purpose[/i].

That’s when he’d heard the commotion in the Square. Some prophet, crying of the Dragon Reborn. His words arrested Adran; they spoke to the center of the boy, to his secret self, and made the kind of sense for which a man might spend his whole life waiting.

Adran drifted closer, milling about in the periphery with the others who’d assembled to hear the prophet speak. One of the men with the prophet even gave Adran some gold. Light, but there were at least 20 marks! Maybe he would find a bed to sleep in tonight after all.

Adran tried to move closer when he saw the girl in the white dress with rainbows at her hemline. She was sort of pretty, and maybe she could help Adran find his sister. Then the ground began to quake, men, women and horses thrown into the air as if they were toys. Less than toys. Broken kindling.

Adran thought the Aes Sedai could not use the One Power to harm their enemies, and that was perhaps his last thought as his world came crashing down.